Twilight Legends
by ZeldaMoogle
Summary: When SG1 investigates strange electromagnetic readings behind a locked stone door, they never imagine they'd end up fighting for their lives-and the freedom of a nation-beside a brave youth and witty imp. Their only goal suddenly becomes getting home...


**A/N:** Well lookie here. Something new in the crossover section-not to mention new from me-it's not a _completely_ Zelda fanfic! _-le gasp!-_ Ok so it counts 'cause it's a crossover, but yeah.

So an SG-1/Zelda crossover, huh? Intriguing. How's about we see what happens, hmm? ;D

BTW, the character listings for this story are NOT pairings. They're the main narrators, though at least for the beginning I'm taking an omniscient (look it up!) PoV on this story.

Note: This is a kind of on-the-side,-I-add-to-it-whenever-I-get-tired-of-my-other-stories-or-have-the-motivation-to-write-an-explosive-amount-in-one-sitting-compared-to-my-Zelda-stories kinda story. So this will most likely not be updated regularly and most DEFINITELY NOT without at LEAST 2 REVIEWS per chap. Count 'em-one, two; one plus one equals two; which means TWO SEPARATE PEOPLE comment. ?Sus Comprenden? Bueno.

Just thought I'd throw that out there so you aren't surprised when you don't get anything for a month...

Now sit back, relax, and hit 'play'!

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**Prologue: Events' Horizon**

"Chevron seven, locked," Walter announced in the glass-walled viewing room above the Gate Room.

The six Air Force staffers—manning a complex maze of equipment lining three walls—barely glanced up from their work as the familiar alarm chimed twice, signaling the activation of the American military's most top-secret device. A muted _whoosh_ filtered through the three-inch-thick viewing windows as the Stargate established a wormhole to P3X-279; the shimmering pool glowed almost cheerfully in the brightly-lit Gate Room.

General George Hammond nodded acknowledgement to Walter's report, his large hands clasped loosely behind his back as he oversaw the proceedings. "SG-1, you have a go. Good luck, and be safe," he spoke into a microphone on the console beside the sergeant.

Standing a safe distance back from the ramp leading up to the Stargate, three of the four members of the addressed team made last-minute equipment checks as their leader turned toward the viewing room a full floor above him. Colonel Jack O'Neill grinned confidently at the bald general and gave him a cheery thumbs-up. "Sure thing, General," he returned the wish cordially, lightly tugging at the brim of his BDU cap to cover the inch of short, dark brown sideburns beside his ears.

The other brown-haired member of the team turned from adjusting his Kevlar vest's straps to address the colonel, pushing his glasses up a little further on the bridge of his nose. "So…General Hammond said SG-8 mentioned a blocked-off room. Should be interesting."

"Indeed," the last member of SG-1—a Jaffa by the name of Teal'c—agreed.

Smiling, the blonde-haired woman standing on Daniel Jackson's other side added, "The team reported an unusually high level of electromagnetic activity. I wonder what was so powerful the Ancients felt they needed to put it behind such a high-security door."

"You should have your answer in a bit, Carter," Jack commented, hefting his MP-5 up in preparation for the faster-than-light travel through the wormhole.

Without further banter, the four explorers strode side-by-side up the metal ramp, their boots clumping rhythmically. The team didn't pause even as they reached the threshold of the blue pool, simply walking through as if without a single concern for the danger they could be facing. To an outsider, it would appear as if they had simply passed right through the water-like surface; yet upon further observation it was plain to see that they did not step out on its physical opposite side as expected.

Within seconds of walking through the Stargate on Earth, SG-1's feet touched solid ground again. Their bodies quickly adjusted from the pulling, wind-driven sensation of being propelled faster than light, having grown accustomed to it from the hundreds of times they had gone through before. Overhead, twin suns burned at high noon amidst the overarching, cloudless blue sky. Alien trees twisted up to the heavens along the dirt track leading toward the Stargate and its accompanying DHD, framing the distant form of a squat, square stone building.

Behind the foursome, the Stargate deactivated its blue pool with a sigh of dissipating energy. Jack raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes casually as the other three observed the dusty plain spread into the distance around them. Far beyond the building they could barely make out with their bare eyes, a line of mountains rose to line the horizon like an unyielding border.

"We should probably get walking," Daniel commented, breaking the silence as he stepped forward a few strides toward the brown, pedestal-like DHD to the left of the Gate. "SG-8's report said the building is at least a few kilometers away, and it's already noon."

"Relax, Daniel," Jack replied, not taking the binos from his face. "General Hammond had the egg-heads here set up a ride for us."

"It would appear they are late, O'Neil," Teal'c pointed out, calmly surveying their surroundings like a crouching lion.

The colonel waved off the trivial detail, appearing to have spotted something which negated that. To the rest of the team, however, that object showed on the road merely as a cloud of dust.

"Is that it, sir?" Major Samantha Carter questioned, nodding at it.

Jack finally lowered the binos as the billowing dust resolved into the shape of a military jeep carrying two white-robed scientists. "That's the one," he confirmed, striding forward to meet the quickly-slowing vehicle.

"Colonel O'Neil?" the jeep's passenger inquired, leaning his bleach-blond head out of the open window. "And SG-1, I'm presuming."

"We're the ones."

"Doctor Ian Pikorvsky." The scientist smiled, jerking a thumb toward the canopied back of the vehicle. "Hop in."

Silence enveloped the team the entire way to the ever-growing structure in the distance, none of the members in a talkative mood at the moment. Each was wrapped in their own thoughts pertaining to what they would find in the blocked room that SG-8 hadn't bothered to investigate in their first sweep.

Jack wondered what had possessed the team to leave it alone in the first place. As explorers and the vanguard of Earth's planetary defense, it was each Stargate team's duty to seek out as much alien technology as they could get and turn to their own uses. SG-8's report hadn't mentioned any particular reason why they had stayed away from the door, at least that Jack had seen.

"Why do you think SG-8 didn't open the door?" the colonel at last broke the silence.

Sam studied him a moment before answering first. "They were probably kept away by the electromagnetic readings, sir. Something with as high activity as was indicated in the report could prove fatal to any unprotected human who walked in unawares."

"That or the door was secured too tightly to open with the equipment they had at the time," Daniel put in, staring thoughtfully up at the gnarled tree branches and open sky alternately whizzing by above.

"Hm." Jack crossed his arms perplexedly. He was still puzzling over the mystery as the jeep ground to a halt minutes later and the cab doors opened and closed. "Well, let's go find out."

After piling out of the jeep, Pikorvsky gestured for SG-1 to follow him into the dark, grey-stone building. "Please, don't touch anything except the door. We're still trying to set up a few diagnostic tools in the main room, and it's a very delicate procedure," the middle-aged man cautioned as they stepped into the dark, medieval building.

Daniel whistled appreciatively as his eyes feasted on the intricately carved images along the walls of the cavernous main hall they entered. Each detail was thrown into ghostly relief between light and shadow by the afternoon sun's rays slanting through narrow open windows in the south wall. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness, Jack could make out a few of the figures his friend was admiring: one looked like a tiny angel; another a grotesque, dragon-looking creature; yet another—this in particular filling an entire three-foot wide pillar—took the form of a massive armored warrior carrying an equally-large war axe.

"Daniel," Sam spoke up from the rear of the diamond formation the four had naturally taken up. "These carvings don't strike me as either Ancient or human."

"Nor are they of Goa'uld or Jaffa design, Major Carter," Teal'c agreed, studying the debated images with his usual face of stoic calm.

Jack halted a short ways ahead of them and turned back to stare at them askance. "These are some wonderful observations, I must admit—but don't we have a job to do?" He jerked his head toward the scientist who was now waiting patiently a few paces further toward the dais at the end of the hall. "I'm sure the brainiacs here will get an analysis of those finished up for us to enjoy back home once we're finished. So—shall we?"

Casting sidelong glances at each other, Sam and Daniel reluctantly followed, Teal'c trailing to complete the rear guard of their diamond. The scientist eagerly resumed his position as guide and quickly towed them down the echoing space, past half-completed stations of computers and complex wiring systems supervised by more white-robed men and women. At the end of the hall, before a wide, three-step dais, their guide made a sharp right around the large central computer station and into a side hall barely large enough for Daniel and Sam to walk down side-by-side.

Surprisingly, the hall did not run the remaining length of the cathedral-like building, but instead darted steeply downward to their left and into the ground. Rubble from some unknown catastrophe was piled steeply against what the team assumed had been the rest of the hallway on the opposite flank of the exposed fissure, leading them to deduce that the cave entrance had once been cleverly hidden despite its size.

"An underground cavern?" Sam questioned no one in particular.

"It appears to be more of an…escape route of some sort, if I had to guess, Major," Pikorvsky suggested, pausing at the dark opening to turn on an industrial-strength flashlight.

The spacious path was illuminated in sharp, eerie contrasts of artificial light and shadow, the light glittering mischievously back at them as it reflected off tiny luminous flakes set into the rough wall. A sharp intake of breath was heard from Daniel at the sight and Sam gazed with appreciative eyes; Jack merely raised an eyebrow in respectful surprise while Teal'c gave no apparent reaction.

"These aren't naturally-occurring, are they?" the team's archaeologist at last questioned breathlessly.

Pikorvsky shrugged noncommittally, pacing farther forward into the gaping maw. "We haven't really gotten a chance to study this corridor in-depth yet," he explained disappointedly. "So far we're more focused on setting up equipment and determining why this building was built in the first place. Something tells me these weren't placed here by whoever inhabited the area, though; they're too randomly spaced and seem to be buried deeper than we can see with the naked eye."

The small company reluctantly continued down the tunnel, listening uneasily to the echoes of their booted steps. Within seconds of entering the cavern proper, Pikorvsky's flashlight was the only source of illumination other than the sparkling walls, causing SG-1 to step a little closer together and tighten their grips on their weapons. Jack's fingers itched toward the combat light secured under the barrel of his weapon but refrained from lighting the device through sheer willpower.

Pikorvsky did not seem to be affected with the same air of caution as the rest, continuing as normally until their path halted about a hundred meters from its start. Before them stood a heavy wall of solid gray stone that matched the corridor, though it was without the impressive decoration SG-1 had expected after seeing the relatively ornate path which led to it.

"This is it?" Jack broke the silence, an almost disappointed note tingeing his voice.

"This is it."

Teal'c studied the surface carefully from a distance as Daniel and Sam stepped forward to investigate, all three searching for a lock, latch, or knob of some sort to pry open its mysteries. "It would appear to have no way of being opened except from the opposite side," he stated plainly, turning his attention to the nearly-invisible, hairline seam around its edges.

Her fingers trailing carefully along the stone, Sam spoke to contradict her comrade's conclusion. "There are carvings here, so faint you can barely feel them." She closed her blue eyes lightly, concentrating on the feel of the nearly-smooth etchings beneath her fingertips. "I think… It appears there used be some kind of locking mechanism, but…"

Jack raised an eyebrow at the major. "But…?"

When she opened her eyes again, they were filled with perplexity. "There's no indentation deeper than maybe a sixteenth of an inch. There's a faint impression of a keyhole-like depression inside a square—here—but other than that, I got nothing."

"In English, Sam," the colonel reminded her. It wasn't that what he termed 'egg-head talk' was too complicated for his battle-hardened mind—far from it. However, he was trained to make split-second decisions based on a situation at hand. How that situation had gotten there was, as far as he was concerned, information for the historians and scientists, whichever applied at the moment.

In this case, it happened to fall to the scientist.

A smile twitched at her lips, but otherwise Sam's confused countenance remained intact. "Sir, there's no way anyone could have used a key or lock pick to open this."

"Well _that_ doesn't make for a very useful door," Daniel commented, crossing his arms and staring at the door as if simply his brown-eyed glare could force it open.

Seeing that the team's efforts had been frustrated, at least for the time being, Pikorvsky at last spoke up. "Sirs—ma'am—I don't mean to be rude, but I must be returning to the surface. If you want, though, I can leave the flashlight so you can continue."

Jack gave the scientist a wan smile, waving for the man to go ahead. "Sure; thanks for the help. I think we might stay a little longer, though," he explained, looking pointedly over at Sam and Daniel still fruitlessly searching the unyielding stone for any more clues.

With a nod of acknowledgement, Pikorvsky handed the flashlight to Jack and then made his way back up the gently-sloping incline to daylight once more. As soon as the echoes of his footsteps had faded into the distance Jack turned to look at Teal'c questioningly.

"So, there are absolutely no ideas in that little Jaffa head of yours as to what might open this?"

The warrior inclined his head slightly, one eyebrow raised impassively at his superior. "The door is of no design I have encountered before, O'Neil. Sadly, my knowledge falls quite short of such an obstacle."

"Hey Sam, I think I found something," Daniel suddenly announced, half crouched over where he was studying the bottom edge of the door. She quickly stepped over to him, also squatting to examine his find. "It looks like Ancient, but it's very faint."

"Here." Shrugging off her light field pack, she unzipped the small front pocket and searched through it a moment before extracting what she had been searching for. She held up the small pad of paper and accompanying crayon triumphantly, smiling at the bemused looks her teammates sent her way. "What? I had a feeling this might come in handy—after all, we're always finding important carvings and stuff on alien planets. Since we can't expect them to always be in excellent condition, I figured this was the best way to get the most out of those we couldn't read very well."

Shaking his head amusedly and smiling, Jack waved her on. "Alright, go on. Maybe it'll give us a clue about how to open the damn door."

"Yes sir."

The rest of the quartet waited with varying degrees of patience while Sam painstakingly rubbed the black crayon over the paper. She pressed lightly as much as possible so as not to obliterate the copy of the runes, but the carvings themselves were so worn it was difficult to get anything at all. It took more than ten sheets from the small pad to cover the entire bottom of the door, not to mention a good chunk of time. Daniel shifted from foot to foot like an impatient school boy for ten minutes, and Jack had almost nodded off before the major finished.

"There," Sam announced, brushing her short hair out of her eyes tiredly. She handed the notepad to Daniel before standing, her knees popping as she stretched. "I hope you can get something out of that."

Daniel was already devouring the writing with his eyes, skimming through it with the expertise that only came from months of poring over Ancient runes. He shuffled the papers with increasing speed, eyes widening as he came to a halt on the last line of the ninth page. Excitement filled his voice as he explained, "It's an account of the Ancients' first contact with what they call the Tau'nae. Supposedly they're a race similar to the Tau'ri but at a higher stage of evolution. From the description, they're what some people on earth might call 'elves'—incredibly beautiful but also lithe and deadly when roused to anger.

"Their first encounter with the Tau'nae wound up as something of an abstract rescue mission—providing sorely-needed weapons and manpower in a seven year war against a powerful tyrant known only as the King of Darkness. It says the Ancients were so impressed with the people's tenacity, unity, and un-bias toward the other races of the planet that they decided to gift the three most powerful, wise, and courageous of the Tau'nae warriors with six powerful objects."

Jack's attention was piqued at the mention of 'powerful objects'. "Powerful, as in able to single-handedly push back the Goa'uld?"

"Exactly what kind of objects are we talking about?" Sam added skeptically.

Daniel frowned perplexedly. "They don't say, although the Ancients do hint that these objects were imbued with considerable amounts of their powers; used in conjunction with at least two others, they proved to be even more formidable than when used separately."

"So if we managed to find the coordinates for this planet; skip on over there; convince the people we're messengers of the Ancients; and take one or two of these treasures off their hands, we'd be able to single-handedly eradicate the Goa'uld," Jack stated in a tone that was fairly certain but open to clarification.

"Yes and no," the archaeologist replied. "Yes, we could probably defeat the Goa'uld with the help of these weapons. However, we most likely wouldn't be able to even get there in the first place; these writings hint at the Ancients being unable to use a normal Stargate to get there. Also, once we got there, we'd have to convince the Tau'nae that it's worth it to part with their national treasures. Considering what we know of their history, I think it's rather unlikely that they'd be willing to do that."

"Does the inscription speak of the door's purpose?" Teal'c interjected, redirecting them to their mission.

The team watched Daniel expectantly as he uneasily tapped a finger against the notepad and bit his lip. "Sort of."

Jack raised an eyebrow at his friend. "Sort of?"

He nodded. "It talks about how the Ancients, once they stumbled onto the Tau'nae's planet, were unable to use the Stargate to return. It required a few modifications in order to create a stable event horizon and ensuing wormhole—a fact that had something to do with the planet's atmospheric makeup. Once they were able to return to the planet from where they had initiated the contact—here—they created a second device similar to the Stargate that allowed them two-way travel between their planets. They then placed it behind this door in order to prevent anyone with power rivaling the Ancients' from attacking the Tau'nae; only an Ancient can open it."

"So what now?" Sam questioned. "We don't exactly have a full-blooded Ancient on hand."

"We might just have to leave it how it is," Daniel replied reluctantly.

Jack rolled his eyes, his frustration with their mission's lack of progress beginning to show through. He stepped up to the door, eyes darting across it as if searching for something his teammates had missed. It seemed a futile attempt at first, since the rest of SG-1 had gone over it with a metaphorical fine-tooth comb. However, he got a different reaction from the stone than his colleagues when he touched the supposed keyhole.

The runes which Sam had just minutes before rubbed onto paper burst into streams of blue light that partly blinded the team. Jack, being the closest to the door, threw his left arm up to shield his eyes, instinctively stepping away and raising his MP-5 in a gesture of blind defense. A light tremor ran through the dark stone beneath their feet as the wall split at its seam, popping open an inch before grinding to a halt. The carvings, however, remained lit with a muted, blue-gold glow.

When the initial brightness had subsided somewhat, the team was found to be standing in various defensive poses similar to that which Jack had taken up. After a moment when nothing further happened, they lowered their guns—and, in Teal'c's case, staff weapon—to stare at the awakened door in awe.

Sam was the first to break their stunned silence. "Sir…What just happened?"

The colonel shook his head perplexedly. "Don't ask me, Carter—I have about as much of a clue as you."

"Well obviously something about you triggered the door's internal mechanisms," Daniel commented to Jack, hesitantly stepping toward the stone slab. "Whatever it was, the door's open now."

A thought suddenly occurred to Jack. "Carter—what about those electromagnetic readings you mentioned?"

The major dove for her pack and hastily dug through it to pull out a small, palm-sized electromagnetic scanner. After a moment spent inspecting the device, she frowned. "Sir…the readings are off the chart. Whatever energy we've woken up, it's interfering with the scanner's electronics."

"Even so, it must not be harmful or we'd probably be dead by now." Daniel quipped, peering cautiously around the stone door to eye the room beyond; it was too brightly lit, however, to see any farther into its interior.

By mutual agreement, the team slowly edged toward the door, weapons raised again in a low ready position as they crossed the threshold.

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**EDIT 1/5/2010:** Just a quick update-the plot drafting for this is coming along really well. It's shaping up even better than I hoped with help from Gargravarr (kudos for your awesome input! =D). But I don't know how long it'll be until I get all that sorted out enough to finish the next chap; just wanted to let you know that I'm thinking the next chap will be a while and until then this will kinda get an informal break. Hopefully, though, this'll mean the other chaps after come out much faster-but then again, we know how fickle my muse is! xD

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**AUTHOR'S NOTE 3/26/2013**

Yes, that is a three year gap between these author notes. Which is precisely why _this_ author's note is being written. (I may or may not add this to my profile as well. ...Actually, I will. So, for the long version, see my profile.)

Long story short, I'm putting _Twilight Legends_ on hiatus. Basically, it has come to my attention that, well, c'mon - it's been three years since an update to this. For which I'm incredibly sad - because you guys are a wonderful audience and I've never had quite the response I've gotten to this for my other stories - but I honestly can't do much about it due to a host of factors, the least of which is my ADHD Muse. And I'm not going to string you guys along saying "yeah there'll be something, sometime, eventually..." because that's just wrong. (Which is making me wonder why I didn't do this sooner. But I guess life got in the way.)

So, yeah. Full explanation on my profile, and my most sincere apologies. But, for the record, _THIS DOES NOT MEAN I'M ABANDONING IT_. I never abandon stories. They, just...take 8 years to complete. Or more. Yeah. In the meantime, it would mean a lot to me if some of my other works could get some of the love this story has. Especially Golden Pendant, which _has_ taken 8 years to get as far as it has.

Humbly yours, with many apologies,

~ZeldaMoogle


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